The investment climate, in some ways, returned to normal in 2014: a healthy but not gaudy 14 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's index of 500 large companies, supported by moderate economic growth with somewhat stable interest rates. It's a climate that investors and professionals would like to see continue, and on Thursday night at the Connecticut Convention Center, 400 chartered financial analysts gathered to talk about the forecast for 2015. In fact, the climate is not so normal: We might expect interest rates and commodity prices to be rising, considering the economic growth — but the opposite is happening. "We need to know what we don't know and...

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The investment climate, in some ways, returned to normal in 2014: a healthy but not gaudy 14 percent rise in the Standard & Poor's index of 500 large companies, supported by moderate economic growth with somewhat stable interest rates.It's a climate...

My junior year of college, I asked my professor why anyone should be forced to take classes that are wholly irrelevant to their major. He said, "If you want to specialize in something, go to a vocational school."
This was the first time that...

Someone who is determined to disbelieve something can manage to disregard an Everest of evidence for it. So Barack Obama will not temper his enthusiasm for increased equality with lucidity about the government's role in exacerbating inequality.
In the...

Royal Bank of Scotland has become the latest overseas bank to shrink its business in the United States after announcing it would cut its mortgage trading business by two-thirds, the Financial Times reported.The British bank will eliminate hundreds of jobs...

A Connecticut law firm has filed a class action shareholder lawsuit in federal court against New Haven's Higher One, a company that offers debit cards to college students around the country.The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Connecticut,...

CHESTER — The power of Boeing to insist on lower prices by its supply chain is so great that the Federal Reserve mentioned it as a factor in the Northeast's regional economy.
Even for suppliers who don't directly sell to the Boeing or Airbus duopoly,...

— Voya Financial Chairman and CEO Rodney O. Martin Jr. came to the company in 2011 at a critical time, just as it was about to separate from its former Dutch parent, ING Groep N.V., and venture out on its own.
The separation required a rebranding, an...

The clock is ticking for buyers and homeowners who want to grab a low mortgage rate in 2014. But if you stay on top of your game, keep your finances in order and act quickly, you can still grab attractive mortgage deals.
These 10 mortgage tips can help...

Insurance companies large enough that their failure could disrupt the U.S. economy will face a familiar regulator as former Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Thomas R. Sullivan starts a newly created position next week at the U.S. Federal...

MetLife will spend as much as $1 billion to repurchase shares of common stock, the company said this week.This is the first share buyback since 2008.MetLife Chairman and CEO Steven A. Kandarian said in a statement that the company's philosophy is that...

If Ohio's senior senator were named Sharon Brown instead of Sherrod Brown, progressives would have a plausible political pin-up and a serious alternative to the tawdry boredom of Hillary Clinton's joyless plod toward her party's presidential nomination....

In Connecticut, universal access to high quality preschool falls short. A third of Connecticut's poorest children enter kindergarten without preschool.
The state ranks 29th in preschool access for 4-year-olds. On the quality side, Connecticut scored only...

Congress has until July 1 to pass a bill that keeps interest rates on subsidized federal student Stafford loans from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. But instead of fixing the problem, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill mostly along...

It comes as no surprise that a deadlocked Congress missed the July 1 deadline to pass a bill that would have kept the interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, as required in 2007...

When it comes to affordable or mixed-income housing, there is no such thing as low-hanging fruit.
It isn't easy to build affordable homes in the 32 Connecticut municipalities that have a fair amount of such housing; it's much harder in the other 137...

For generations, there has been a tried and true way for parents to help their children get ahead: investing in their education.
Along the way, we learned that the same formula works for society as well. Make public investments in education — be it...

Though it is not always apparent, there's a lot going on in Hartford. More people are living downtown and more downtown housing is on the way. A group of young entrepreneurs and artists is emerging in the city. There's a solid chance Coltsville will win...

Last week, Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Senate Republican Minority Leader John McKinney, a candidate for governor, debated whether we taxpayers should be excited over the $500 million budget surplus announced this month. After all, we're told,...

The following is an abridged version of a conversation at http://www.facebook.com/edpagecourant.
Jeff Clark: A cruel measure ... cut subsidies to Monsanto, corporate America, Wall Street, EXXON Mobil, etc.
Edward J Boughton Jr: Maybe if we were...

Are we in a stock market bubble that’s about to burst? Some say yes. The S&P 500 has set 36 records this year on the way to its 26% gain and a record high of over 1,700. Others say no. Janet Yellen, the nominee to be the next Federal Reserve chairman,...